Hard disks are digital data storage devices which may be used in computers in order to store large amounts of information. The hard disk is made of, for example, an aluminum alloy plate also known as a "platter". Coated on the aluminum alloy plate is a magnetic film on which carbon is deposited so as to store data thereon.
To duplicate large amounts of information on respective hard disks during the fabrication of hard disk drives, a hard disk copier machine has been utilized. Such a hard disk copier machine can simultaneously duplicate information of a source storage device (e.g., a source hard disk) on several destination hard disks.
The disk copier machine can duplicate information from the source hard disk to the destination disk drives in accordance with three typical methods, a first method of which is to divide source data by mega byte and continuously duplicate all of the divided source data on the destination hard disk from a starting position to a predefined position, a second method of which is to obtain cylinder, head and sector information related to the source data and continuously duplicate the source data from the starting position of the hard disk to the designated position in accordance with the obtained information, and a third method of which is to detect position information of the hard disk related to the source data and continuously duplicate the source data from the starting position to the detected ending position.
In the event that source data on the source hard disk is duplicated on a destination hard disk using any one of the above described methods, and if the source data is discontinuously distributed over the source hard disk, the disk copier machine must read out the source data through the whole region of the source hard disk so as to duplicate them on the destination hard disk. Thus, it takes a long time to duplicate information from a source hard disk to a destination hard disk. This is because even empty spaces of the source hard disk where data is not stored are duplicated on the destination hard disk. More specifically, with the recent increase in capacity of a hard disk, it takes a further long time to duplicate information from a source hard disk to a destination hard disk.
As stated above, if data is discontinuously stored over the source hard disk, or if the source hard disk is divided into at least two partitions and the data are discontinuously stored in the partitions, a disk copier machine can recognize only a first of the two partitions as the whole area of disk and duplicate the data stored on the first partition to the destination hard disk. Thus, the disk copier machine cannot recognize a second of the two partitions and thereby data stored on the second partition cannot be duplicated to the destination hard disk.